House Negotiator Calls Senate Immigration Bill 'Amnesty' and Rejects It

By RACHEL L. SWARNS

Published: May 27, 2006

CORRECTION APPENDED

The leading House negotiator on immigration denounced on Friday the bipartisan legislation that passed the Senate this week, saying House Republicans would never support a bill that gives illegal immigrants a chance at American citizenship.

The negotiator, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he could envision legislation that included a guest-worker program. But he insisted that strong enforcement measures would have to be in place first, including an employment-verification system and tough sanctions on employers who hired illegal immigrants.

Mr. Sensenbrenner said he would continue to reject President Bush's call for a compromise because he believed that the president, who supports a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, remained out of touch with the public.

''The president is not where the American people are at,'' Mr. Sensenbrenner said at a news conference. ''The Senate is not where the American people are at.''

''Amnesty is wrong because it rewards someone for illegal behavior,'' he said. ''And I reject the spin that the senators have been putting on their proposal. It is amnesty.''

Mr. Sensenbrenner's stance put him on a collision course with backers of the Senate bill who say they will not accept any legislation that does not legalize illegal immigrants.

''There's going to have to be a path to citizenship,'' Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said on Friday.

It also highlighted the enormousness of the challenge facing Mr. Bush as he works to persuade reluctant House conservatives to embrace his position. Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, suggested on Friday that the president would embrace the challenge.

Mr. Snow said that Mr. Bush would continue to make his case on immigration and suggested that the president had already addressed Republican concerns about border security by promising to send up to 6,000 National Guard troops to help out on the United States-Mexico border.

''I think there are areas on which members of the House are going to agree with the president,'' Mr. Snow said, pointing to the widening consensus around a guest-worker plan. ''There are certainly going to be disagreements, and that's how the process works. They're going to have to get hashed out.''

Matthew Dowd, a strategist for Mr. Bush, said in a memorandum that polls conducted for the Republican Party suggested strong support among Republicans and conservatives for a temporary-worker program and for legalizing illegal immigrants.

But House conservatives strongly disagreed. One House aide said on Friday that constituents were furiously calling lawmakers to express outrage about the Senate plan, which would require the government to consult with Mexico before building a fence along the border.

NumbersUSA, a conservative group that supports reduced immigration, said the plan ''would create the largest immigration increase in U.S. history -- a disaster for American workers and taxpayers.''

Mr. Sensenbrenner said the Senate was poised to ''repeat the mistakes'' of the failed 1986 amnesty law, which was supposed to end illegal immigration by legalizing illegal immigrants, securing the country's borders and cracking down on employers.

Instead, fraudulent applications tainted the process, many employers continued illicit hiring practices, and illegal immigration surged. ''I would hope the Senate would take a look back,'' Mr. Sensenbrenner said.

Separate from the attacks by conservatives, some immigrant groups continued on Friday to criticize elements of the Senate bill, including provisions that would expand deportation and detention and leave some immigrants vulnerable to prosecution for using false documents to escape persecution in their home countries.

Marshall Fitz, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said those issues were of ''serious concern'' even though the Senate bill would protect asylum-seekers from being deported while their claims were under review by federal courts.

Other advocates for immigrants criticized the bill as favoring illegal immigrants who had been in the country for longer than two years. Those living here for a shorter time would be required to leave.

''Some people might want to hold their nose and swallow it,'' Mark Stan, program director for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said of the provisions in the Senate bill. ''But I think you can't have your eyes shut to some of this.''

Photo: Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the House's lead Republican negotiator on immigration, denounced a Senate bill yesterday. (Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Correction: May 30, 2006, Tuesday
An article on Saturday about the opposition of Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the leading House negotiator on immigration legislation, to the measure passed last week by the Senate misstated the name of the program director for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who was critical of some provisions of the Senate bill. He is Stanley Mark, not Mark Stan.